


The World is Only Getting Bigger

by Angel Ascending (angel_in_ink)



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: And a Little Bit Emotionally Neglectful, Character Study, Gen, I'm Assuming Jester's Mom is Human, Spoilers for episode 8 of Season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-26 15:32:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13860699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angel_in_ink/pseuds/Angel%20Ascending
Summary: Jester’s world had been only as big as her room, once.





	The World is Only Getting Bigger

**Author's Note:**

> Can I just say that episode 8 was a GIFT from start to finish? Seriously. 
> 
> Jester's backstory hurt my heart so bad, I just had to write about it. 
> 
> I bet y'all can tell when I have weekends off now, two fics in one day! And yes, *this* was what I was writing while the power was out and my battery was slowly draining.

Jester’s world had been only as big as her room, once. That was in the beginning, before she was Jester, when she had been someone else, or at least someone different, with a different name. She had been that person and her room had been her whole world.

It had been a very big room, she would realize later, once she had a basis of comparison. There had been plenty of space for young Jester to play in, plenty of things to do. There had been books to read about wonderful, far off places, and Jester had spent hours drawing and painting all the places she’d read about and making up little stories about herself having adventures. It was something to do, as she listened to her mother in the next room, her singing and the low sounds of her and her clients as constant a soundtrack to Jester’s days as the ocean outside her window.

Sometimes Jester had even gotten to _see_ her mother, and those had been the best days, the best hours full of pastries and painting and singing lessons. Her mother had been very busy, because she was so very very beautiful that everyone wanted to be with her. Jester didn’t look anything like her mother. Jester had asked her mother once if she was beautiful too, and her mother had smiled the way she always did, and told Jester that she was very pretty. Jester would be surprised to discover later that other people had smiles that reached their eyes, lighting them up from the inside.

Jester first managed to pick the lock on her door when she was twelve years old, using one of her mother’s hairpins. The idea had just came to her one day that it was something she could try to do, and it took her a lot of trial and error, but the day the lock had clicked open was the day her world had gotten just a little bit bigger. There had been so many other rooms, so many other little worlds to explore that weren’t her own! It was in the other rooms and hallways of the brothel that she had learned how to be sneaky, how to blend into the shadows and squeeze into the best hiding spots, because discovery meant yelling and tears from her mother and she hated to make her mother upset, but it hadn’t been enough to stop Jester from escaping her room several times a week.

For awhile Jester had been content to explore the brothel and all of its various rooms. That had meant she had spent a lot of time hiding in closets from both clients and the various other people who worked in such a place. Jester would amuse herself by turning all the clothing inside out, and by peering through the cracks in the door and watching the various goings on in the room itself. Her mother had taught her about sex of course, about how you always used protection and how you never just gave it away without getting something in return, but that had been about it. What Jester saw in those rooms sometimes looked fun and sometimes very much did not, but everyone had seemed to be enjoying themselves, so that had been all right.

Jester’s world got bigger again the day she realized that if she snuck into her mother’s room and onto the balcony, and if she was very careful and didn’t slip, she could climb down the wall and go walking _outside._ Outside was nearly as good as pastry, in Jester’s eyes. Outside was the ocean, and little breezes and waves and flowers, and sand in between her toes and water lapping at her feet.

At first she had only snuck out at night, enjoying the quiet, because she was used to quiet, she had to be quiet when she was in her room, and when she was exploring. But one day she had gotten bold and gone outside during the day and everything had been sunny and bright and there had been people in town! So many people! There had been an entertainer in the town square, someone who dressed in bright colors and told jokes and made people smile and laugh and everything had been noisy and wonderful. Jester had laughed too, and she realized she had never laughed before, not long and loud in a way that made her breathless. That was the moment Jester became Jester, that perfect moment when she realized what had been missing from her life, and who she wanted to be.

That was the same day someone had called her a demon for the first time, the first time someone had looked at her with hate in their eyes. Later, Jester would sit in front at her triple mirrored vanity, gazing at herself reflected upon herself reflected upon herself, and wonder at the duality of the world, how something so good and so awful could both happen on the same day, and she would laugh even as she cried.

It wasn’t long after that that she dreamt of the Traveler. In her dream she had been looking in her mirror, but the mirror had reflected back, not her own face, but a path leading through an open doorway. When Jester had turned around, her bedroom had vanished, and all there was was the path, and the door. She had walked down the path, through a forest that had been so green and bright it had almost hurt her eyes to look at it. After a moment Jester realized someone was walking beside her, someone whose form shifted with every step, and whose face Jester couldn’t remember upon waking. He had called her, not by the name she had been born with, but the name she had chosen for herself, and said that he had been watching her for a long time. He had asked her if she would like to be his cleric and make mischief in his name and in return he would grant her certain powers.

Jester had squealed and thrown her arms around the Traveler and hugged him, because of course! And now she had a friend! A super cool awesome friend! And when she had woken up her head had been all full of brand new things and a holy symbol sitting on her chest. She had wanted to thank him, but she didn’t know if he could hear her, wherever he was, so she drew him pictures in her sketchbook because he was a god or something, and gods saw everything supposedly, which Jester thought was a bit creepy, but whatever.

That day she had gone into town magically disguised as a human and wearing a face so beautiful it could have stopped hearts. Every day was a different face, a different name, and with her newfound anonymity she learned how to be loud, how to ask questions, how to re-arrange entire shops in the blink of an eye and slip away unnoticed, how to make people laugh with her words. It was like her inner world was expanding to match her outer one, like a map unfurling across a table.

The day one of her pranks went wrong, Jester couldn’t even get mad about it. Besides, it hadn’t been the _prank_ that had gone wrong, it had been Lord Something-or-other’s reaction to it that hadn’t been right. It had been funny! Jester had heard other people laughing, she herself had found it hilarious, and she had felt the Traveler’s warm sense of approval so strongly it had been like standing in a sunbeam. But no, the lord had gotten all _offended_ and it had been either stay and be killed or go away, which was no choice at all really. And now she was having an adventure for really reals, with quests and monsters and friends and everything!

“Jester? You okay? You’ve been staring off into space for like, ten minutes.”

Jester blinked at Fjord, who was staring at her over a mug of ale. Right. They were in The Leaky Tap, and Jester had been drawing in her sketchbook while nursing a mug of goat’s milk. She looked down at the page and at the drawing she had made of all her new friends traveling down the road together in the rain.

“I was just thinking about how the world’s just so big and full of awesome things, you know? Every day is an adventure!”

Fjord smiled back, a real smile with his eyes and everything. “I guess you’re right.”

“And the world is only getting bigger,” Jester said with a grin, and went back to her drawing.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm angel-ascending on Tumblr if you want to stop by and say hi!


End file.
